Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Dunrobin Castle
A9, 1 mile north of Golspie • April, May, Sept & early Oct Mon-Sat 10.30am-4.30pm, Sun noon-4.30pm; June-Aug daily 10.30am-
5.30pm • £10 •
T
01408 633177,
W
dunrobincastle.co.uk
Mountain biking aside, the reason to stop in Golspie is to tour the largest house in
the Highlands,
Dunrobin Castle
, north of the centre. Modelled on a Loire château
by Sir Charles Barry, the architect behind London's Houses of Parliament, it is the
seat of the Sutherland family, once Europe's biggest landowners with a staggering
1.3 million acres. hey were also the driving force behind the Clearances here - it's
worth remembering that such extravagance was paid for by evicting thousands
of crofters.
Only a tenth of the 189 furnished rooms are visited on tours of the
interior
, which is
as opulent as you'd expect and full of fine furniture, paintings (including works by
Landseer, Allan Ramsay and Sir Joshua Reynolds), tapestries and
objets d'art
. Alongside,
providing a venue of falconry displays (11.30am & 2pm), the attractive
gardens
are
pleasant to wander en route to Dunrobin's
museum
, which is housed in the former
summerhouse and the repository of the Sutherlands' hunting trophies - heads and
horns on the walls plus displays of everything from elephants' toes to rhinos' tails - and
ethnographic holiday souvenirs from Africa.
he last extravagance is that the castle has its own
train
station (summer only) on the
Inverness-Wick line; this is no surprise, considering the duke built the railway.
The Sutherland Monument
Approaching Golspie, you can't miss the
monument
to the first duke of Sutherland
on the summit of
Beinn a'Bhragaidh
(Ben Bhraggie). A 30ft-high statue on a 79ft
column, it bears an inscription which recalls its creation in 1834 by “a mourning
and grateful tenantry [to] a judicious, kind and liberal landlord”, and quietly
overlooks the fact that the duke forcibly evicted fifteen thousand crofters from his
million-acre estate.
ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE
12
GOLSPIE AND AROUND
By bus
Stagecoach's Inverness-Thurso service stops at
Golspie.
Destinations
Inverness (Mon-Sat 6 daily, Sun 4 daily; 1hr
15min); Thurso (Mon-Sat 5 daily, Sun 4 daily; 1hr 40min).
By train
Dunrobin Castle is a summer stop on the
Inverness-Thurso line (April-Oct Mon-Sat 3 daily; 2hr
10min from Inverness, 1hr 35min from Thurso).
ACCOMMODATION AND EATING
Coffee Bothy
Fountain Rd
T
01408 633022.
A cabin-
style café popular with bikers and walkers. Fill up on
all-day breakfasts, fresh soups and baked potatoes
before (£5-8), and with home baking afterwards.
Feb-
Dec
Mon-Fri 9am-5pm, Sat 10am-5pm.
Granite Villa
Fountain Rd
T
01408 633146,
W
granitevilla.co.uk.
A floral overload brings country
charm and keeps to the period style of this late Victorian
house. Accommodation is spacious and comfo
rtab
le in all
en suites; the twin is more restrained in decor.
£80
Sleeperjazz
Rogart, 8 miles west of Golspie
T
01408
641343,
W
sleeperzzz.com.
Sleep in the quirkiest
accommodation for miles around: a first-class railway
carriage parked in a siding beside the Inverness-Thurso
line; a 19
30s'
showman's caravan; or a Bedford bus. Closed
Oct-Feb.
£16
/person
Helmsdale
HELMSDALE
is one of the largest villages between Golspie and Wick. It's certainly
the most picturesque: a tight little grid of streets set above a river-mouth harbour.
Romantic novelist Barbara Cartland was a frequent visitor and must have looked
as exotic as a flamingo in its grey stone streets. For all its charm, it's a newcomer,
founded in the nineteenth century to house the evicted inhabitants of Strath
Kildonan, which lies behind it, and which subsequently flourished as a herring port.
